Bernard Shaw once said “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable." And at times when we’re grinding, I can’t help but think that is true.
As I am starting back into my “busy 9 months” I find myself thinking about how to capture the “mental energy” in a bottle to sustain me through the cold winter months. Those times of years where the grind of the job and life makes you lag just a bit. And it looks like I may have found the ticket…. Firing up the creativity.
https://linktr.ee/striveseekfind
Bernard Shaw once said “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable." And at times when we’re grinding, I can’t help but think that is true.
As I am starting back into my “busy 9 months” I find myself thinking about how to capture the “mental energy” in a bottle to sustain me through the cold winter months. Those times of years where the grind of the job and life makes you lag just a bit. And it looks like I may have found the ticket…. Firing up the creativity.
https://linktr.ee/striveseekfind
In life, we have two choices, to experience or to exist. Every week, each of us makes that choice to either seek a better way to live or to get by. walk alongside me each week on the strive seek find podcast as we continue to seek our own brilliant future. Bernard Shaw once said, without art, the crudeness reality would make the world unbearable. And at the times when we're grinding, I can't help but think that's true. Welcome to strive, seek find podcast. I'm your host, Chad Whitmore. As I'm starting back to my busy nine months, I find myself thinking about how to capture the mental energy in a bottle to sustain me through the cold winter months, those times of years when the grind of the job in life makes you lag just a bit and it looks like I have made just found the ticket firing up the old creativity. Now let's get started. For our purposes today, while we're discussing creativity, I'm going to fit it into the following definition. Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicate with others, entertaining ourselves and others. This is from the book human motivation, third edition by Franken. I'm choosing this broad definition for an obvious reason. People in my opinion, tend to pigeonhole what they consider to be creativity. It doesn't have to be necessarily narrowed to designed art, writing or engineering. creativity can be found in so many places. And well, my own personal experiences may be more narrowly defined, you can find greatness and creativity in many human endeavors. So, as a reminder, for me, when I think of my own creative endeavors, I think podcasting for the last year plus writing, when I'm focused enough to do it, barbecuing or cooking year round. There are other times and places in life where you pull from that same reservoir of creative energy. Or in my opinion, using it up might be the right way to put it. But these creative endeavors that I just listed are the places I most like to think about. So let's roll with it. So how does creativity impact your life? It improves your mental health. It compares to meditation as far as creating flow and focus. And in this case, flow is that sense that you get when everything is going right? Whether it's an athletic event, or painting or creating in any way. For example, I remember years ago, sitting down to write a story. And I had a half form idea. And two hours and 25 pages later, I had something completely unexpected. possibly one of the best things I had written till that point. And rather than exhausted, I'm energized by the experience. I wanted to go further. But I carried this idea to the what I felt was the logical conclusion. Whether it was or not discussion for another time. Other impacts, it helps you reduce anxiety, depression and stress. And let's be honest, all of these are killers right now in society. We're on a hamster wheel between these areas, stuck, worried about the future worried about what happens next depressed over what we've lost and stressed out by the work we are doing. We got the trifecta going on. So we need to be creative, to give ourselves a hope of surviving. According to some of the research I've read. Being creative can help you process trauma. And you can see this in what I've read about therapy, especially like art therapy and whatnot to give you a more positive way to process what you experienced. It can help you manage your emotions. Think about the number of adult coloring books, or painting sips you've seen around the world. If they did help you lower your stress, and help you control your emotions, well, I guess wine would still continue. But most of us aren't comfortable enough in that field that we would dive into it. And one other impact that I hadn't thought about being creative increases empathy towards others, because it opens doors in your brain to recognize other points of view. And if we've ever needed that in human history, now's a good time. Now, the next major impact is creativity can make you happier. It has the impact of making your brain process more efficiently, which leads to more of the happy chemicals being at the right place in the right time, naturally. Lowering stress is mentioned here. Because the less stress you have negative stress, of course, the happier you tend to be. And again, it creates energy. As you've learned to focus your attention on something that excite you excite you, it only makes sense that you are empowered to do more. And I'm going to pull from the way wayback machine for this one. I can remember in my long ago, antique days of being involved in athletics, that I had one event, one event, possibly in my entire career, because I spent the rest of the time trying to recreate this feeling where everything was just perfect. I was my focus was there, my vision was above whatever I'd had before. Everything came more naturally more quickly. And it was an amazing feeling. I could do no wrong for that entire game. And it was so excited to be able to see where the other guy was going before he could see it. To feel your body move in such a way that was smooth and precise and focused. It was incredible. And honestly, I've never recaptured it since. But for that moment. Wow. Lastly, it stimulates the brain. And for those of us who are continuing to age instead of planning to live forever, it keeps your brain building new connections as you age. In other words, you're continuing to learn. And I've always believed that the border between youth and old age is your willingness to grow, change and learn. So as long as you're building those connections to the brain, you're keeping yourself somewhat less young, which in turn, according some research helps fight dementia. Now keep in mind, this is when you're focused and creating this isn't downtime. This isn't sitting on your rear end, watching television, which as much as I enjoy it is the ultimate and passive activities. I do love it. But if it were a yoga pose it would cut be called the lump position. Or even reading, which while the brain is activated, is not quite the same as creating something new, or solving a problem. Both of these things have their places. But to get these impacts, you need to be creating something new. One last thing, these benefits aren't naturally inherent. Some people are naturally more creative than others. But like any skill, we can build it. There are three things that have been suggested that may help build up your focus and creative energy that I urge you to try. The first is practice, set a consistent time and work at it. The hundreds of books I've read about how to become a writer over the years. They all have their own processes. But one of the things that they harp on almost exclusively is the importance of a consistent, disciplined approach to creating output. Now whatever process that is changes. I mean, I've read everybody on Bradbury on writing to Stephen King on writing to J Michael Straczynski on writing and it all comes down to process consistent, structured hard work. In other words, you're going to your mental gym, and you're working out. The next thing, play something that kids are great at adults less shit. So, and because of the world we live in, we try to make kids play less, makes no sense. In this case, find something you're passionate about, and mess around. You'll be surprised what you learn and what you do. And for me, this represents a huge part of my learning, and podcasting. I watched some YouTube videos, I looked around, I listened to a lot. And then I just started doing and making my mistakes. And finally, experience getting out and doing in either form will help you get better at it in the long term. So if you're waiting to be struck by creativity, like some sort of metaphorical bolt of lightning from Zeus, it's never going to happen that way. He needs to work at it a bit. Just look at the number of artists, writers, actors, musicians who talk about how they are a 10 year 20 year overnight success because they've all worked their craft to get there. And if you just want the benefits of creativity, you still have to work at it to get better at it. So if I may make a suggestion, take an interest, work at it consistently for a few months. see where it takes you. And even if you're the only person to know what you did. Maybe you're not pleased with how your bookshelf turned out. Maybe the barbecue sauce sucked. Maybe the song isn't really singable. At least you brought something new into the world and the brain impact side. That's more than enough. How about you? How do you use your creativity? Would you be willing to share? Let me know I put the readings I did for this on the strive seek find page on Facebook, that you can get a look at some of these impacts. Shout out. A shout out to Alisha for the wonderful review on pod chaser. Thanks for the support. Alicia is the host of the civics and coffee pod. If you're into history podcasts, you should check this one out. Because it's one that you could listen to on your way to work and have an episode completed by the end. Also, a shout out to the Boise sports pod had the opportunity to sit down and record a little bit about Boise State football this week with Chris and had an amazing time. Thanks for a great pod and thanks for welcoming me aboard. worth mentioning if you have Disney plus, this one's for you. The bad batch, a sequel to the Clone Wars cartoons, which made the prequels almost watchable. And a lead into the live action shows on Disney plus, like the forthcoming soul Caetano show is the story of a special group of clones finding their way in the the galaxy at the beginning of the Empire. It is tremendously well written and thoughtful. And the interactions between characters have a lot of heart specifically between the young clone omega and the leader of the bad batch Hunter. And these relationships alone make it worth mentioning that batch season one just finished up and is currently available on Disney plus, check it out. And that concludes this edition of strife seek find. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, or would just like to support the podcast. Here are a few ways you can do it. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts or pod chaser that will help bring more listeners to the podcast. If that isn't your style, you can buy me a coffee or purchase submerge. Links are in the podcast description. Finally, if you have ideas or feedback, please reach out to the strive seek find page on Facebook or to@chancewhitmore5 on Twitter. Until next time, keep seeking our own brilliant future. ave a great day.